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Designers regularly make magic happen on home décor TV shows. Or so it seems when they routinely transform dreary, underwhelming spaces into breathtakingly pretty rooms in a flash, overcoming family conflicts, and scheduling and budget snags before quickly arriving at a fairy-tale ending.

Celebrity designer Tommy Smythe, trusted partner in design to TV show host Sarah Richardson, is willing to pull back the curtains and cast light on the realities of renovating and re-styling a home. He’ll do just that for real-world homeowners who can access his considerable design chops when he’s onstage Saturday, Sept. 20 at the Toronto Fall How Show. The annual show runs Sept. 18-21 in the Better Living Centre at Exhibition Place. Tickets are $15 at the door, $12 online, and $13/$10 for seniors and students.

Smythe’s presentation will be “very spontaneous, with lots of stories from my own experience, and about the creative process,” he says.

“I show some spaces that are familiar to (the audience) because they have seen them on the show and spaces that that might have missed because they only got briefly published in a monthly magazine.”

A home show highlight for Smythe is always the question-and-answer period.

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“There are as many questions as there are people in the seats. It’s almost the most important part because that conversation directly informs the kind of television we do, or, say, a segment on the Marilyn Denis Show, where I’m a regular,” says Smythe. “It’s real world interaction with real people who have real lives.”

In design television, he explains, production companies often give subjects financial support and a team secures free items and materials from sponsors, often leaving homeowners on the hook for only the labour.

“It’s like winning the design lottery when you get chosen for a TV show. We have put in entire kitchens, including appliances, where the people have paid $10,000. There’s no such thing as a $10,000 kitchen in the real world. There, you’re going be paying perhaps $100,000.”

A portion of that amount, says Smythe, would be his own fees — and he makes no bones about that. “I have rent just like everybody else, and what I do is valued at a certain level.”

Among the tenets he’ll bring to the stage is his belief that homeowners should buy the best quality they can afford, and save up for better quality pieces.

“Good things will last and have intrinsic value,” he says.

Smythe acknowledges that his advice will mean spaces get finished more slowly, and he’s fine with that. “Impatience is the mortal enemy of good design,” he suggests.

While he’s no fan of knock-offs, he is happy when viewers and readers steal inspiration from the spaces he creates.

“The reason Sarah and I put our work out into the world is because we want you to copy our ideas; we’re in the business of sharing our ideas. If I have a red sofa and you decide you want a red sofa, there is nothing inauthentic about you taking that idea that I have given to you willingly and generously.”

Authenticity is another matter and unfortunately, says Smythe, the “knock-off culture” has made deep inroads into the world of design and décor. It’s a trend Smythe views with dismay.

“Somebody’s time and creative energy went into making something beautiful, and for it to be simply knocked off and sold at a lower price and of lesser quality really is abhorrent to me.”

“What is wrong is to go out and — instead of the red sofa that Sarah designed and that’s made with good materials here in Canada in a fair work environment — you get one that sort of looks like my sofa but with a design that has been stolen and is made with inferior products by somebody in another country who is not paid properly. None of that is good for you. None of it is healthy.”

Creating a beautiful, highly functional home means having patience and a healthy dose of self-confidence, says Smythe, who has described his own style as “young fogey.” As well, he adds, art, architecture, fashion, travel and street culture all contribute to style.

“Everything that is about absorbing life is (what) informs understanding yourself well enough to create a beautiful environment.”

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